Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability – BGA Policy 2027 Budget Snapshot

The Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability recommends candidates for Chicago Police Department and Police Board leadership, drafts and has power to approve CPD policies, and reviews the departmental budget and goals for CPD. CCPSA’s budget also supports the three-member District Councils elected within the city’s 21 police districts. 

First budgeted for with interim values in the 2022 budget, CCPSA began full operations under elected leadership in 2024. Because the department is so recent, historical averages have been left off the summary chart below.

• CCPSA’s proposed $4.1 million in 2027 departmental appropriations fall $613,615 short of the $4.7 million mandatory minimum as calculated by the city’s budget office. As in previous years, OBM closes the gap by counting an estimated “fringe” cost of departmental pensions and benefits towards the funding floor, a practice that diverges from the rest of the city’s budget process in several significant ways, as detailed in a previous BGA Policy Analysis. 

• All of CCPSA’s appropriation-level changes in the 2027 proposal are relatively small, less than $100,000 adjustments from the previous year. A $77,603 increase in salaries and wages on payroll is the department’s largest increase (up 2.5% from 2026), and a -$24,300 reduction in outside contracting through the professional and technical services appropriation the largest decrease (down -30.6%).
  
• The 2027 proposal makes no change to staffing at CCPSA, retaining the same positions and titles as budgeted in 2026.

The Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability was created by the July 2021 Empowering Communities for Public Safety ordinance. As of passage of the 2022 budget, the commission was still in its interim form, although it received some initial funds for start-up operations in that year’s budget. 

The commission operated under interim appointed leadership for its first years, with 2024 and 2025 the first budget cycles for which the commission came into its role as a fully-operational department with leadership elected via the process laid out in the 2021 ordinance. Its budget and headcount grew as the commission ramped up to full operations, largely levelling off from 2024 onwards. 

The 2027 proposal recommends a 1.9% increase in CCPSA’s budget, compared to an overall citywide increase of 5.1%. 

Estimated Fringe Costs

City budgets do not break out “fringe” pension and benefit costs for non-grant positions by department, instead grouping them together as citywide expenses under the Finance General section of the budget. To better reflect the real cost of service for departmental operations, BGA Policy has included an estimate of pension and benefit costs for the years 2018-2026, using Department of Finance fringe memos from each relevant year. An estimated fringe cost for the 2027 proposal uses the average annual rate of increase for each of the inputs into the fringe formulae. 

Based on the city’s fringe formulae, the CCPSA fringe cost for nongrant employees averaged 40.1% from 2018-2026, compared to a citywide average of 26.8%. 

Local Fund Actual Spend

Since 2024, CCPSA has spent on average 77.2% of its locally funded budget, compared to the citywide average 88.1% local fund spend for the same years.

Budgeted Positions & Vacancies

CCPSA’s budgeted headcount climbed during the department’s first ramp-up years and have remained relatively stable since 2024, with this year’s budget retaining the same 29 budgeted positions as last year.

From January through September of 2026, the months for which full-time position vacancy data is currently available, CCPSA averaged a 15.7% vacancy rate, compared to the citywide average of 11.2%. 

Only one of the department’s budgeted full-time positions was a persistent vacancy (defined as the number of positions within the same combination of title, subsection, section, division, department, and fund codes that remained vacant in all nine months of available data): 

The 2027 proposal makes no change to staffing at CCPSA, retaining the same positions and titles as budgeted in 2026.

CCPSA is one of three city departments with a mandatory minimum budget set in its establishing ordinance. A 2025 BGA Policy analysis found multiple issues with the way the city calculates the minimums and determines that the relevant departments have met them. 

CCPSA’s proposed $4.1 million in 2027 departmental appropriations fall $613,615 short of the $4.7 million mandatory minimum as calculated by the city’s budget office. As in previous years, OBM closes the gap by counting an estimated “fringe” cost of departmental pensions and benefits towards the funding floor, a practice that diverges from the rest of the city’s budget process in several significant ways:

• In current city practice, annual budgets do not treat pension/benefit costs as part of departmental budgets for any purposes other than meeting mandatory funding minimums.
  
• There are no CCPSA-specific appropriations for pension and benefits, which are contained within citywide lump-sums for each of the city’s four annuity and benefit funds under the Finance General section of the budget.
  
• The fringe cost used to reflect CCPSA’s share of citywide pension/benefits appropriations is an estimate based on a fringe multiplier for an employee at the citywide average salary covered by the Municipal Employee’s Annuity and Benefits Fund, not a specific appropriation or calculation based on the department’s budgeted positions.
  
• CCPSA’s minimum budget is set at 0.22% of non-grant appropriations for the Chicago Police Department. While the budget office counts CCPSA’s estimated fringe towards that budget floor, it does not include an estimate of CPD’s fringe in the 0.22% calculation, resulting in an apples-to-oranges comparison of CCPSA appropriations plus estimated fringe to CPD appropriations without estimated fringe. 

CCPSA’s appropriations without fringe fall roughly $600,000 short of a mandatory minimum calculated without CPD fringe; if CCPSA’s appropriations plus fringe were compared to CPD’s appropriations plus fringe, the gap would be even greater, with the exact variance depending on which fringe rates are used. 

CCPSA is entirely locally-funded in this year’s budget proposal, the same as in the previous year, with all appropriations coming from the city’s general-purpose corporate fund. 

Largest Appropriations

As with most departments, personnel costs make up the bulk of CCPSA’s appropriations, with salaries and wages on payroll by far the largest expense category, followed by stipends for the elected leadership.

In 2025, the most recent complete budget year for which local fund actuals and encumbrances data is available, CCPSA spent 85.5% of its locally-funded budget, with no overspend in any appropriation categories.

Change from Previous Year

All of CCPSA’s appropriation-level changes in the 2027 proposal are relatively small, less than $100,000 adjustments from the previous year. A $77,603 increase in salaries and wages on payroll is the department’s largest increase (up 2.5% from 2026), and a -$24,300 reduction in outside contracting through the professional and technical services appropriation the largest decrease (down -30.6%).